The Unintended Panga. While serving as the Executive Officer at Mobile Missile Coast Battery, Worli, Mumbai, we had to often go to Madh Island, where Navy had acquired a large tract of land along the coast line, for deployment of these Missile batteries. As this acquired land was adjacent to the Madh beach, it had to be fenced off to avoid encroachment/trespass. The mode of our travel to Madh used to be the Russian Jongas, which were part of the vehicles that came along with the Maz batteries. After one such visit to Madh, we were on our way back to Worli. Cdr Bobby Duggal, OIC MMCB/CO Trata, who was very fond of driving his own vehicle had driven on our onward journey to Madh. There was a rookie naval driver who was driving us back to Worli. The young driver was very nervous having the CO sitting next to him. This reflected adversely on his driving skills and we were having quite a roller coaster ride. After one such jerky gear shift, Bobby who had had enough yelled at the driver, Abe gadi chalana nahin aata. Theek se chala varna ___. His out burst made the young driver freeze on the controls, his mind had stopped functioning by now and he continued driving the vehicle with out shifting the gears. This made Bobby more furious, he yelled Saale, Ab tu gear change mat karna. Han, tu Gear mat badalna. Taking it as COs order, he continued driving the vehicle in the same gear. Now this was too much for Bobby, who thought that the driver was disobeying him and not following his directives. He shouted at the top of his voice,Saale mere saath panga leta hai. CO ke saath panga leta hai. Then looking at me he said Exo march him up to me as defaulter for disobeying the orders of the Commanding Officer, as soon as we reach office. On reaching the unit it took me some effort to convince Bobby that the panga, as he perceived, was entirely unintended and the poor driver was totally confused and was literally following his orders.
Posted on: Tue, 09 Sep 2014 08:57:23 +0000
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